Driving IT efficiency and agility with proactive support from Cisco TAC

According to Gartner, enhancements in digital workplace infrastructure processes will refocus 30 percent of IT operations efforts through 2024, which will benefit both support and continuous engineering. This is a compelling reason to make sure your team is aligned with innovations from Cisco.[1]

Reimagining the TAC experience

The efficiencies cited by Gartner are being driven by analytics and automatic remediation capabilities, areas that we know are key to our customers. That’s why Cisco is investing in these capabilities. Fortunately for you, because our customer base is one of the industry’s largest, if you experience a problem, it is likely we have seen the same problem before—so you can learn from us.

We use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to analyze logs and suggest potential resolutions. We provide real-time solutions that can vary from something as simple as a software upgrade to more complicated solutions, such as a configuration change. The knowledge we gain from your issues is then incorporated into guided workflows and self-help capabilities.

These new experiences and resources uplevel your productivity, so you can get more time back in your day. Below are some results you can expect by leveraging our key innovations.

New ways to get answers without the hassle

One of my favorite new innovations is the ability to have an interaction with the virtual TAC engineer. This virtual Cisco TAC engineer can open cases, diagnose issues based on the catalog of known problems, and then close them—often in just 15 minutes or less! Access to this innovation was critical to our response for the Log4j vulnerability, enabling us to help thousands of customers quickly.

Another tool we offer is the self-service TAC Connect Bot, which lets you see your case status and interact with Cisco digitally for more common use cases. This Cisco innovation also provides proactive alerts, such as known critical problems, tool updates, and related articles. Because we have automated the “easy stuff,” our engineers have more time to focus on complex issues, which results in time savings for you, too. In fact, our customers have saved more than 30,000 hours since the launch of the TAC Connect Bot, just through access to on-demand case statuses.

Avoiding issues and solving problems faster

Intelligent RMA uses AI/ML to auto-generate RMAs. For UCS/HyperFlex hardware, we take this a step further by proactively detecting failures through Intersight and automatically initiating an RMA. This achieves a zero-touch RMA 80 percent of the time. All you need to do is confirm the address, and a replacement part is on its way. The Proactive RMA experience will be extended to additional technologies in the future, so make sure you have connected your data to Cisco.

When TAC solves a problem, we not only solve similar cases with that information, but we also share it with your Cisco account team. For example, our new automated Health Checks identify and report issues based on diagnostic insights, and the Cisco Customer Success and Professional Services teams then leverage these insights to stabilize and optimize the performance of your products. Health Checks are available today for Security, Intent-Based Networking, and Data Center products. You can request one through your Cisco account team, via CX Cloud, or from a digital email journey.

Industry recognition

I am proud of Cisco’s team, and others have noticed our work as well. J.D. Power recognized Cisco for providing “An Outstanding Customer Service Experience” for Technical Support, 12 years in a row. We have also received a Stevie Award and Technical Services Industry Association (TSIA) Awards for the support innovations I just described and others.

Accelerating real-time value

Some of the innovations discussed here have been incorporated into CX Cloud, your one-stop digital gateway for maximizing the value of Cisco investments. And you can look forward to future enhancements of this platform.

Here at Cisco, we will continue to evolve by taking the experience of thousands of customers and combining it with our expertise to help you to predict and prevent future problems. Please join the Cisco Community and take advantage of these features—so your team can get out of the IT maintenance business and move on to solving your business problems.

Cisco’s 2010-2021 Technical Support Services Certifications are comprised of J.D. Power Certified Technology Service and Support Program Certifications 2010-2017, 2021, and J.D. Power Certified Assisted Technical Support Program Certifications 2018-2020. J.D. Power 2021 Certified Technology Service and Support Program, developed in conjunction with TSIA, is based on the successful completion of an audit and exceeding a customer satisfaction benchmark for assisted support operations. For more information, visit www.jdpower.com or www.tsia.com.

[1] Gartner, 2022

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